


Watershed

by K_Hanna_Korossy



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-26
Updated: 2016-01-26
Packaged: 2018-05-16 10:08:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,772
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5824498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_Hanna_Korossy/pseuds/K_Hanna_Korossy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tag to "Warriors"/"Sentinel 2, Pt. 1." Blair's starting to feel like their partnership only goes one way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Watershed

First published in _Sensory Overload 10_ (2005)

 

_"I gotta have a partner I can trust."_

_Jim Ellison felt a vicious satisfaction with those words, and almost disinterest at the shocked look he'd glimpsed on Sandburg's face at them. A tiny stab from his conscience reminded him of their history together, of all his Guide had done for him, of how much he really did love this most unexpected friend of his. But that just made it worse. This "friend" had just stabbed him in the back, helped another Sentinel and kept it a secret from Jim. It had made his job harder, which was bad enough, but it was a far deeper betrayal than that. His partner had become partner to another. That made his loyalties suspect; how was Jim supposed to believe anything Blair said or did now? Why would he even want to?_

_But beneath the roiling anger, the outrage, the gnawing mistrust, deep down where he refused to acknowledge it, it still… hurt._

__

He really didn't want to be there.

Whoever did want to be at a funeral, though, right? Especially so-called "civilized" funerals where everyone dressed in dark clothes and talked in hushed whispered and stared at the polished coffin. How could that not be depressing? There were places where funerals were times of celebration, sending off loved ones in style to the better lands beyond. Other cultures partied, spending days drinking until you all but forgot why you were there in the first place. Still others focused on the joy the person's life had brought, not on the sorrow of their death. The grief of unspoken words. The pain of knowing you were partly responsible for their death…

Blair Sandburg blinked back tears and wondered dully if they were for himself or Janet. Janet who'd been young and beautiful, inside and out. She'd just been starting her life, ready to change the world, and he had every reason to think she would have succeeded. A loving family grieved two rows in front of him: parents, a sister and two brothers, a fiancé. All staring at that coffin he'd helped put her in.

Jim had said it wasn't his fault. Janet had agreed to help him expose Cyclops Oil's illegal activities because she'd believed them wrong, too, and she would have done the same thing even without Blair's prompting as soon as she realized something was wrong. And she still would have been killed for it, if not with an arrow, then with a bullet or a convenient car accident. They might never have solved her murder then, or brought the killers to justice, and that was how they could pay their respects to the dead, Jim had said. But Blair didn't feel much like he'd done anything for her except put her in harm's way.

And Jim wasn't there now, anyway.

The priest recited the closing benediction and the people around Blair started to move. Some away from the coffin in hushed clumps, others toward it to pay their respects to the family. He wanted to leave, too, get out of there and go on with his life and forget. And yet he stood helplessly rooted, paying the penance of watching others' pain. As if he didn't have enough to bear already.

A slim figure in black detached itself from the rest and moved his way, and Blair blinked, startled. Janet? But… no, not exactly. The face was younger, the angles of it slightly different, the hair shorter. Janet's sister, no doubt, and the knife twisted a little deeper in him at the sight of her brimming eyes. Oh, God, not this, too.

She walked up to him, unheeding of his attempted aloofness, and laid a hand on his arm. Smiling.

"You're Blair Sandburg, aren't you?"

He swallowed. If she could do this, he could, as well. "Yeah. Marlene, right? I am so sorry for your loss."

Her smile saddened. "Thank you. But this would have been a lot harder without you. I can't imagine burying her not knowing who killed her, wondering if he was still out there, if he was _here_. I can't thank you enough for that, from all of us."

His throat closed together completely, and all Blair could do was nod. Apparently that was the only story the family had gotten, and he didn't have the courage to tell her any different.

"Is Detective Ellison here? I'd like to thank him, too." She craned around him to see.

Another sour flip of his stomach. "No, Jim… He couldn't be here. But I'll… I'll tell him." If he even cared. Jim had promised him earlier he'd come to the funeral without Blair's even asking, but that morning he'd begged off. Work had come calling, as always, and it always came first. Being practical, Jim had called it.

He probably considered the conciliatory words he'd spoken to Blair just two days before to be "practical," too. Can't have the Guide be mad at you, right? Just tell him what he wants to hear…

Blair gasped for air, suddenly feeling smothered by the quiet heaviness around him.

Marlene, unseeing in her own grief, gave him that painful smile again. "Good, I want him to know how much we appreciate what he did. And thank you for coming." Her thin fingers pressed his arm, and then she walked back to her family. One of her brothers put an arm out to her, and she let herself be pulled close, leaning into his embrace. They had suffered a tremendous loss, but at least they still had each other.

Blair turned away and headed silently back to his car, alone.

He followed the stream of traffic to the gates of the cemetery, then paused there for a moment. To the left meant back to the loft… to Jim. More heavy quiet and stilted talk and intertwined anger and pain. Right meant away from town, toward the bay. Open spaces, solitude, peace.

Blair turned right.

The car drove itself, turning on roads he knew only by instinct, the air that flowed by his window increasingly salty and cool. Blair seemed to breathe easier with every mile gained. Or passed. Was he running to or away? Did he even care anymore? As long as the crushing weight lifted a little from his chest, it didn't much matter.

Gravel crunched under his tires as paved street finally gave way to an open lot, then beyond that the thin strip of beach. It was the middle of the day in the middle of the week in September, hardly beach-going weather in a state that already wasn't known for its beaches, and the lot was almost empty. One lone fisherman sat down the strip a ways, fishing from his canvas chair. He ignored Blair as the Volvo pulled up close to the sand and Blair wearily climbed out. He got a few feet farther, close enough that he could hear the quiet lapping of the water on the shore, and his strength seemed to give out, sinking him onto the sand. Blair pulled his knees up to his chin, wrapped his arm around them, and swayed in silent thought.

All right, so maybe Janet's death wasn't his fault; grief and guilt were hard to separate sometimes. She had wanted to know about Cyclops's mismanagement, and he hadn't had to twist her arm to look into it. She'd always been an idealist, just like him, and she'd wanted to make a difference. Ironically, her death had, tipping Cyclops's hand.

Of course, maybe she wouldn't have had to die if they had gone straight to meet her when she called instead of driving the streets looking for Incacha. That was another question altogether. But then, that would lay her death at Jim's feet, not Blair's.

Jim. Blair snorted softly to himself. It always came back to Ellison, didn't it? Janet's death had barely registered to the detective because he'd been so caught up with his case, with Incacha's visit, with his missing senses. The case that had superseded her safety. The shaman who had died clutching Blair, passing on a legacy that frightened and overwhelmed him, but that Jim didn't even want to talk about. The senses that seemed to be the only reason he and Jim were still together. _What? Were you worried you're not going to complete your dissertation?_ The question clung to him like a leech, sucking away his energy and his joy in their partnership. Jim had tried to mend fences a few days before and it had almost worked, until he'd all but disappeared right after, spending long days at the office and backing out on his promise to go to the funeral with Blair. Who needed an unreliable partnership like that, a partner who accused you on a regular basis of being in it only for yourself?

Blair buried his face against his knees.

God help him for his weakness, he did.

 

_"To me it was a real breach of trust… I gotta have a partner I can trust."_

_Of all the thoughtless, tactless words Jim had ever thrown at him, those had cut the deepest. A simple, well-meaning mistake, one that hadn't even completely been Blair’s fault – it wasn't as if Jim had been very easy to talk to those last few days – and three years of trust and friendship were down the drain. How stupid had he been not to see this coming earlier and get out before home and best friend had set deep roots in his heart?_

_No, this wasn't his fault. Okay, so he hadn't handled the whole Alex Barnes thing too well, true, but it really had been well-intentioned, and Blair had done his best to make up for the mistake. To have the door slammed so hard in his face after all that… that was Jim. That had always been Jim._

_Maybe it really was partly Blair's fault for wanting the partnership so badly that he ignored the truth. Maybe this was just a long-overdue eye-opener, a chance to get out before he got in even deeper._

_But no matter what he consoled himself with, a broken heart still hurt._

__

Darkness had settled over the bay, casting a shining sprinkle of stars into the water, before Blair finally uncurled his stiff body and plodded back to the car. Even the fisherman had left some time before, leaving him alone on the beach. But the quiet that had been peaceful first was only lonely now. And so he would go home. At least he and Jim could be lonely together there.

The Volvo started with a cough that reminded him he needed to get the car looked at, but the minor details of life didn't seem very important when the major ones were crumbling around him. One friend dead, the relationship with another not far behind – what did that leave? His non-existent family? His damnable thesis? What had he to show for his life?

At an empty intersection, the Volvo wheezed and died.

"That was a rhetorical question," Blair said acidly heavenward, but the sarcasm didn't make him feel any better. Every blow was a little too painful that day.

He turned the key in the ignition, listening to the gasps and moans of the old car, but no purr of life.

"Of course," Blair muttered. "That would be too easy." Well, at least Jim couldn't ignore him this time, for better or for worse. Pulling out his cell phone, Blair punched in the speed dial.

_"Ellison."_

__"Jim, listen, I'm–"

_"Sandburg, I can't talk right now."_

__He pulled the phone away to stare at it, dumbfounded, then put his ear back to it in time to hear some soft clinking. Like silverware on china. Like on a date. "But Jim–" he stumbled, not quite believing.

_"Is it an emergency?"_

__What wasn't? But he found himself forming the word automatically. "No."

_"Then I'll talk to you later."_

_Click._ End of conversation.

Blair blinked. It would have been funny if it didn't feel a lot more significant than just Jim ditching him for a date. Like a death knell he could no longer ignore.

Anger suddenly shot through him, at life in general and Jim specifically, and with a curse Blair rolled his window down and threw the cell phone as far as he could, relishing the crash and tinkle it made as it broke on the pavement. The same phone Jim had given him so he could always find Blair when he needed help, like some 24-hour on-call support line. Apparently, it only went one way.

The same helpless rage from the funeral seemed to rise in him like a restless tidal wave. Blair yelled a wordless sound of frustration and pounded both fists on the steering wheel, over and over until they were sore, then he banged the door with his elbow for good measure.

"It's not fair!" His voice carried in the quiet street, as did the bang of the car door when Blair got out and slammed it behind him. "I don't care anymore, got that?" That was directed at the sky again, or maybe Jim Ellison sitting comfortably in some restaurant across town. "I don't care!"

Thunder rumbled through the sky above him.

And Blair suddenly found himself laughing, which was a lot more frightening than the rage had been, hard and long enough that tears sprang to his eyes and he had to lean on the car for support. "Perfect," he muttered to the Volvo. "Just… perfect. Throw in a mugger and it'd be a perfect day."

Oh, God, he was tired. Tired and empty.

Blair sighed, straightened. Okay, temper tantrum over; time to move on. He probably shouldn't have thrown the phone away. He'd have to call AAA to get the car towed, and maybe a cab ride wouldn't have been a bad idea considering the part of town he was in and the thunder that once again rolled along above him, even if he couldn't afford cab fare. But the Volvo wasn't blocking traffic and it was too much a rust-trap to be attracting chop-shop scavengers. And as for the distance or the weather, frankly, Blair didn't much care. One good thing about reaching bottom was you had nothing left to lose.

Blair pulled his suit jacket around him and resolutely started walking in the direction of the loft.

 

Jim Ellison paced the loft with a silent prowl not unlike a jaguar's.

Blair Sandburg wasn't a kid any longer and certainly didn't need someone waiting up for him. But that didn't explain why he hadn't come home yet from an afternoon funeral when it was just after midnight now, or why whenever Jim tried to call Blair's cell, all he got was the taped message that it was "unavailable." No kidding. The question was, _why_ was he unavailable?

Jim threw another glance at the VCR clock as he passed it – 12:13 – then out the balcony as he strode past the glass doors, his hearing following automatically. Sandburg had called earlier with his usual bad timing, and Jim had been too occupied to talk, but what if his roommate had been trying to tell him something was wrong? Not an emergency, but a distraction, a change of plan. Or maybe he'd just been so upset by the funeral that he'd needed some time to think and wasn't coming home that night. Jim winced. He should've gone to the funeral like he'd promised. It was no excuse that–

There. A strained heartbeat on the sidewalk below, its sound familiar even in this off cadence, then the squeak of the building door. Jim mentally traced the heavy, slightly limping tread to the elevator doors, hearing the ping of the arriving car. Elevator, plodding footsteps, weary heartbeat – Blair was exhausted. Perhaps even… wet? Jim frowned at the slight squelch that accompanied each step. And a hitch of breath as the elevator began its lurching ascent, as if in pain. What the…?

He strode across to the loft door and swung it open, listening as the elevator car slowly reached their floor, then creaked open. And there was Sandburg, the picture of dejection with a liberal coating of mud and the droop of his shoulders and head. Jim didn't need to see his face to know there would be no spark of life in his eyes. It took Blair a moment to realize the elevator doors stood open, then he shuffled through them, still without looking up, without even seeming to realize he was being watched.

Jim hesitated between anger and concern, and as usual came up sounding the latter. "Sandburg, where've you been?"

He actually saw Blair's body jolt from the sound of his voice, and the matted head finally lifted to reveal a pale and mud-splattered face staring at him in disbelief from underneath. A flaking red scratch stretched vertically along one cheek and a bruise was darkening on his forehead on the same side. Jim's frown deepened to an angry scowl. If someone had attacked his Guide…

Blair seemed to steel himself, straightening his shoulders, and he edged his way into the loft past the blockade of Jim's body, still without a word. He only turned back to face Jim when Ellison slammed the door shut the door behind them. And the utter coldness of the kid's eyes stunned silent the demand for an answer that had been on Jim's lips. There was nothing tired about Blair's stance now, like a determined fighter sizing up his opponent. But that still didn't prepare Jim for what followed.

"You wanna know where I've been, Jim? Fine, here it is. First I was at a funeral for a friend who'd still be alive if it weren't for me, whose sister _thanked_ me for helping find the killers. The same funeral, by the way, you promised to go to with me, then bailed on. Then I went out to the water to think, to try to figure out, hey, what am I doing here anyway, risking my life and my friends' lives with a guy who's ready to toss me every time something goes wrong? That took a couple of hours because, you know, Jim, I couldn't seem to find an answer. And then, oh, yeah, then I spent the rest of the evening walking home from South 40th where my car broke down, which would have been bad enough without my roommate telling me he was too busy to give me a ride, or the idiot who nearly ran me down by the park. If it weren't for the mud puddle I'd jumped into, you'd probably be visiting me at the hospital about now. Unless, of course, you were too _busy_."

Jim opened his mouth, without a clue what he was going to say.

Blair didn't give him the chance to figure it out. The animated hands now tucked around his body as if in self-comfort, he looked at Jim with eyes that weren't cold at all anymore.

"You know what really kills me in all this, Jim? I have given you everything I've got. I spend more time at the station than I do at school, and half the time I'm at school I'm working on figuring out the latest thing with your senses. I've been shot, kidnapped, drugged, knocked unconscious, and nearly blown up. I've lost people I care about and almost lost you a couple of times. I hardly see the friends I've got left any more, and when I do they're always telling me how much I've changed, how serious I've gotten. But you know, none of it mattered because I knew I was doing something important, something I cared about, with someone I cared about. You've been the best friend I've ever had, Jim, and I've loved you like a brother and trusted you with my life." His voice wobbled before he visibly yanked it back under control. "And even when you were giving me grief, I always thought you felt the same way. But today it finally hit me: I've just been seeing what I wanted to see the whole time. Whatever it is you want from me, man, I don't have any left to give. So what kind of a chump does that make me, Jim?" The last was as angry as it was rhetorical.

Jim stared at him for a moment, marble-faced, incensed at the implicit accusation, but hating even more the soul-baring nature of it. Since when did they ever talk about these things? Since when had they ever _needed_ to? Who was wanting too much now?

He'd never asked Sandburg for any of it, the trust or the tagging along everywhere or the tests. And certainly not the taking all those risks. This was supposed to be only business, a room and research material in exchange for helping Jim get control of his senses. Now it was his fault the kid wanted more he couldn't give? That Sandburg didn't feel _loved_ , for God's sake?

With wordless fury, Jim spun away and strode toward the front door. If Sandburg was so tired of him, there was an easy solution to that.

_You have been the best friend I've ever had, Jim, and I've loved you like a brother._

__He was only a scant foot away from the door when he jerked to a stop as if grabbed from behind.

And maybe, in a way, he had been.

 

_Blair was dead. His face was white, his lips a cyanotic blue, and he lay a still, wet heap beside the fountain Jim had just fished him from, no familiar heartbeat thrumming in Jim's ear, no sound at all._

_And Ellison's world had just ended._

_He'd lost friends before. His team in Peru. Danny Choi, his "little brother." Two partners. But none of them had felt like this, like someone had chopped his legs out from under him, stopped his mind, crushed his chest. This kid he'd belittled and taken for granted and ragged on, had just left an unfillable hole in Jim's life simply with his departure. And with it came the startling realization, too late._

__I love you, too.

_But all Jim could say, over and over in the shattering of sudden grief, was a disbelieving, "This can't be happening…"_

__

He turned away from the door and just stood and looked.

Sandburg was shivering in his wet, muddy clothes, anyone could have seen that. Even as Jim watched, the tremors dislodged a few clumps of dirt from the folds of his ruined suit and dropped them onto the clean loft floor. His face was hidden once more behind a curtain of soggy, tangled hair.

Jim's eyes perceived more: the small flex of muscles of hands curling into fists, or maybe just trying to find something to hang on to. The tiny shakes of the head as if part of some bleak interior monologue. The slight off-center balance of the body that told of not wanting to put his full weight onto his right leg. The hard swallow Jim could see bob up and down Blair's throat as he tried to get himself back under control.

And then there was what he saw that had nothing to do with his eyes.

"Chief," Jim said softly, paused. "Go take a shower."

He got a glare for that, initially defiant, then, slowly, confused. But Sandburg finally turned and shuffled into the bathroom.

Well, it was a start. Jim listened to clothes sliding off and plopping on the floor, paying particular attention to the hiss that sounded as one of the shoes were removed. He waited until the shower turned on and the long sigh as Blair eased into it, and only then started to move.

The kid hadn't done laundry in too long. Jim could find a pair of relatively clean sweats in his room, but nothing more than short-sleeved T-shirts to go with it. And stuffed at the bottom of the closet, blood-stained clothing from the dying Incacha. Soberly, Jim put the bloodied clothes in a bag for later washing. To the sweatpants he added some clean boxers and warm socks and one of his own thicker flannel shirts, and crept into the bathroom to put them on the closed toilet lid. The muddy clothes on the bathroom floor went into the laundry bag, too. Jim collected a few items from the medicine cabinet, and then crept back out again. If Blair knew he was there, he gave no sign.

Jim chewed the inside of his lip as he went back out to the kitchen, mentally trying out and discarding words like he did theories for cases, but everything sounded crass or simplistic. Sandburg had practically called him a brother – what did a guy say to that?

Jim breathed a silent sigh of frustration as he filled a kettle with water and put it on to heat, then rummaged through the refrigerator. Usually he didn't have to say anything, just do what he was doing now: look after Sandburg, fix the guy a hot meal, do the laundry when needed. It usually seemed to be enough, to show he cared how the kid was doing, to make Sandburg feel better about whatever curveball life had just thrown him. And Jim did care – how could Blair doubt that after living with him for over two years?

There was nothing good in the refrigerator. The pantry at least yielded some canned soup, and Jim mixed the tomato concentrate with milk and stuck it in the microwave. The last of the crackers went on a tray on the counter, along with a soup bowl and spoon.

But Jim wasn't the one of them who had just come from a funeral, looking like it had been his best friend buried that day. Ellison winced. Blair had said Jim was the best friend he'd ever had. Didn't say much for the competition, did it?

The mud on the floor came next, and Jim made quick work of it. Blair had already given the loft a good cleaning a few days before to get rid of any reminders of Incacha's death, so there wasn't much to do.

The funny thing was, Jim kind of knew how he felt. Maybe. And not just because of all the kid had, rightfully, pointed out he'd done for Jim those last few years, or because Ellison was afraid to be left alone to deal with his senses. This was something that went deeper than debt or need or responsibility. What was down there that deep, Jim wasn't exactly sure – it wasn't as if he spent a lot of time thinking about stuff like that. But surely it was something that could withstand a little discomfort, even some soul-searching, if it meant that much to Blair.

The cleaning supplies were stowed and the soup retrieved from the microwave, ladled, and covered. Jim retrieved a fat file from the pile on the kitchen counter and took it and the tray of food out in the living room. Then he sat down in the easy chair and waited, no wiser for what he'd say than when Sandburg had first disappeared into the bathroom.

From the length of time the shower ran, it was probably due to cooling water alone that Blair finally shut it off and climbed out. Jim caught the slight hesitation as Sandburg noticed the clothes, then turned his hearing down to give him privacy as he dressed. The rattle of the doorknob was the only warning Ellison had of his roommate's reappearance.

Jim glanced up neutrally, inwardly a little relieved to see some color back in Blair's face, but avoiding his eyes. He wasn't ready yet to deal with whatever they held, good or bad. Instead, he waved at the couch. "I warmed up some soup. C'mere and let me take a look at your foot."

There was only a slight uncertainty before Sandburg shuffled over, small in the bulky clothing, and sank warily onto the edge of the couch as if waiting for Jim to bite. Jim ignored that, too, shoving the bowl of soup into his hands, then claiming the right foot and far more carefully lifting it to rest on the edge of the coffee table. Blair watched him for a long moment before finally starting to eat.

Jim rolled the sock down and gently manipulated the appendage, listening to the kid's breathing, feeling for warm spots. There, some swelling and tenderness right above the ankle. Too late to ice, but Jim wrapped it snugly in an ace wrap and eased the sock back on after it, then went to the kitchen to warm up the heat pack. The kettle started to whistle just as he got there.

"What kind of tea do you want?" he called back out to the living room.

Another vacillation. "Lemon," Blair eventually said, quietly enough that it would have slipped by Jim if he didn't have his hearing turned up. So, Sandburg knew Jim was monitoring him. Somehow the thought uncurled the tension in Ellison a little.

Tea fixed and the heat pack warm in his hand, Jim returned to the easy chair. The soup and crackers were gone, so he passed the mug to Blair, then turned his leg just enough so Jim could rest the heat pack on the worst of the swelling. He finished with opening the Tylenol bottle and tipping two tabs into Blair's hand.

"Anything else hurt?"

Blair chased the tabs with a swallow of tea, then shook his head. "Just a few bruises." His heartbeat remained steady, not lying.

Jim nodded and sat back. And, for the first time, started thinking about what he should say.

But Blair again beat him to it. "Look, Jim, uh, I'm sorry I went off on you like that. You didn't deserve all of that, it was just…"

"Not one of your best days?" Jim offered wryly. He hadn't missed the careful phrasing, " _all_ of that."

"Yeah." Blair stared at nothing for a moment, then took another sip of his tea and huddled behind the mug.

Jim's turn. He cleared his throat. "I know what you mean. I spent most of the day in meetings with the INS, the DA, and the Chief's office. The Chopec are finally going to be allowed to go home tomorrow and take Incacha's body with them."

Blair's eyes widened at that. Like Jim had figured, he'd never even considered why Ellison hadn't been able to go to that funeral with him, nor had given him any benefit of the doubt on the matter.

Which stirred anger briefly in Jim again, until honesty forced the admission that, maybe, he'd used up all his leeway already. Hadn't he been the one to practically accuse Sandburg of being in their partnership only for the sake of his research? Seemed the only things Jim had no problem saying about their friendship were the nasty ones. And they weren’t even true.

But all Blair said was a quiet if sincere, "That's good." And went back to his tea.

Jim pursed his lips, flattened them into a line, tapped the file on the table. Then finally reached it out to Blair. "That's what else I was working on today. The DA's office is filing formal charges against Spalding and Jaeger for the murder of Janet Myers."

That actually earned him a reaction as Sandburg went slack-jawed and set his mug down on the coffee table to take the file.

"We worked out the last of the details during dinner. We're going for Murder One for Yaeger, Conspiracy for Spaulding."

Blair was absorbed in reading. "Jim, I… That's great, man. I had no idea…"

"That I wasn't out tonight with some beautiful blonde?" Jim said lightly, not feeling light at all. "Have you ever seen ADA O'Dell, Sandburg? Bald, short guys aren't really my type."

Blair flushed. "Jim…" The file was laid on his lap, immediately forgotten. "…I'm not–"

Jim held up his hand. "Let me finish apologizing first, okay? I wanted to be there at the funeral with you today, but these meetings came up and, well, I figured the best thing I could do for the Myers's is make sure their daughter's killers got what they deserved. I'm sorry you had to go through it alone, though. I know how hard it is to lose a friend like that."

Blair nodded, face downcast.

Jim gave him a hard look, then took a deep breath and bit the bullet. "And if you're a chump, Sandburg, that makes me one, too, because what you said goes both ways."

It hadn't even hurt that much. And the look on Blair's face after that first moment of startlement was worth it. Jim could see the wound between them healing; apparently Blair really hadn't meant all he'd said before, and that fixed something still unmended in Jim, too.

But he plowed on, finger upraised, before things got too mushy. "And the next time your car breaks down in the middle of nowhere, at night, that _is_ an emergency, got it?"

Blair hadn't forgotten how to smile, even though his eyes were glittering with tears.

Ah, what the heck, things were mushy already. Jim put a sympathetic hand on Sandburg's leg and just pretended not to hear Sandburg give vent to a few of those tears. After those last few days, he was probably entitled.

It was what friends did, right? And it didn't hurt at all. Felt kind of nice, even.

_…the best friend I've ever had…_

__Good God, who would've believed it?

 

_The warm hands against his cold skin were the first things he felt. Then a jolt._

_And a hot drop that hit his face and rolled down his cheek but didn't come from him._

_"Come on, buddy. Come on."_

_He knew that voice. More yet, he knew the fear for him that lay behind it, the love that strained it to breaking. He'd heard it before, and it drew him back like a man dying of thirst to an oasis._

_His lungs suddenly heaved, filling his throat with water, and all he could do now was choke and vomit and cough. It didn't seem like he'd ever be able to breathe again, and the thought squeezed his lungs even harder in panic._

_Those same hands gently turned him on his side, rubbed his back, held his head. Held him._

_And confused, aching, still spluttering, Blair Sandburg relaxed into his partner's hands and smiled._

The End


End file.
